Strengthening Reporters, Strengthening Reporting: How Internews' Earth Journalism Network Impacts the Careers of Environmental Journalists

"EJN has contributed to improving the quality and quantity of climate and environmental reporting produced by individual journalists."

This report shares the findings of research which assessed the impact that support from the Earth Journalism Network (EJN) - in the form of fellowships, trainings, story grants, and organisational grants - has had on the professional development of grantees and on the quality of media coverage of environmental issues. It also identifies actionable recommendations for EJN to further strengthen the impact of its support.

As explained in the report, Internews launched the EJN in 2004 to improve the quality and quantity of environmental journalism around the world. In order to achieve this mission, EJN works to strengthen the knowledge, skills, and career opportunities of journalists and editors who report on the climate and environment, as well as to bolster the capacity of media organisations that publish reporting on the same topics. This work is done mainly through fellowships, trainings, story grants, and organisational grants.

The research had the following objectives:

• Identify impacts on the career trajectories and professional output of the journalists EJN has supported, which can include career advancements, awards, better quality of coverage produced, and other similar professional milestones.
• Identify a sampling of the impacts that EJN's support has had on the quality of coverage produced by individuals and organisations that received it.
• Understand how EJN's support contributed to these changes, and identify any other factors that also led to these changes.

The evaluation was undertaken in two stages: (i) a survey of 66 EJN grantees and (ii) a set of key informant interviews with a targeted sample of 27 grantees, which informed the development of impact case studies that offer a more detailed exploration of the experiences of journalists who have received support from EJN and the impacts they attribute to it. Case studies included in the report share grantee experiences from countries such as the Philippines, Bangladesh, Mexico, Uganda, and Ecuador.

Key findings as highlighted in the report include:

• Survey respondents overwhelmingly report improvements across several categories of benefits, including: knowledge, skills, and quality of work; networking and collaboration; impact and viewership; and pitching and financial success. These benefits are shared across all types of support that EJN provides to individual journalists.
• Survey respondents and interviewees overwhelmingly report that EJN has increased their interest in environmental reporting and helped them include the voices of vulnerable populations more often as sources, including women and members of rural, Indigenous, and/or local-language communities.
• EJN's support can also be connected to both general opportunities for engagement among environmental journalists and concrete collaborations within and across countries. These collaborations include cross-border reporting opportunities and platforms for specific topics within environmental journalism.
• Several research participants highlighted that EJN's support provided them with opportunities to report stories that not only resulted in improvements to their own careers but also in several cases resulted in changes to public policy and practice.
• While career impacts are largely shared across all demographic categories, journalists in Latin America less frequently reported that their financial opportunities were improved following EJN's support as compared to participants from other regions. Potentially, this phenomenon is due to the fact that the funding available to support environmental journalism in this region is comparatively limited.

As EJN enters its third decade of supporting environmental journalists around the globe, the research points to a small set of targeted recommendations that would further strengthen its impact on the careers of journalists. In brief, these recommendations include:

• Expand training on specific relevant topics, including using data and audio/video in reporting.
• Enhance training and mentorship related to diversifying sources and financial sustainability.
• Explore new ways to support the financial sustainability of organisations.
• Provide more financial sustainability training or mentorship for Latin America - or further explore reasons for lower responses in the region.
• Provide new and direct support for formal collaborations.
• Continue to support increased flexibility with grant topics and timelines.
• Expand geographic coverage for topics that have relevance to low- and middle-income countries.
• Test new models to strengthen mentorship.